K. Luan Phan, MD

Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. K. Luan Phan is Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Program and Associate Head for Clinical and Translational Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also Chief of NeuroPsychiatric Research and a VA Research Scientist at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. He is an adjunct faculty of Psychology, Anatomy and Cell Biology, and in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. He has a longstanding commitment to translate discoveries from affective and cognitive neuroscience to improve our understanding and treatment of anxiety and mood disorders.

Patient-oriented research in his interdisciplinary Research Program crosses both UIC and the VA and aims to discover the behavioral and brain mechanisms that implement the regulation of affect and motivational salience in humans. Using these discoveries of mechanisms, his group defines the brain targets to make treatments better and to innovate new interventions for mood and anxiety disorders. The Research Program integrates affective, cognitive, and social neuroscience perspectives and uses a multi-level, multi-unit analytic approach that integrates self-report and clinical scales, neuropsychological performance, behavior, neuropsychopharmacology, peripheral and central psychophysiology. In addition our studies involve children and adults and often incorporates clinical trials of pharmacotherapy and psychosocial interventions and a longitudinal design, from risk to illness to recovery. The Program primarily uses magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, DTI, sMRI), electroencephalography (EEG) of event-related potentials (ERP) as predominant tools to assess brain circuit function as they relate to emotion, affect regulation, motivation and cognition. The Program appreciates that individual differences in brain function has a major influence on a person’s risk for - and resilience from - illness and on which treatment approach is most likely to promote recovery. The Program aims to answer three main questions: 1) What are the nodes of brain dysfunction in mood, anxiety and addiction disorders?; 2) How do treatments work and for whom?; and 3) Where and how do exogenous neuromodulatory agents (e.g., drugs of abuse, hormones, direct current stimulation) exert their effects on brain and behavior.

Dr. Phan received his medical degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received psychiatry residency and research track training at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinics at the University of Pittsburgh and at the University of Michigan Hospitals and Clinics. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2012, he was Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience Program at the University of Michigan and Chief of the Mental Health Clinic at the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System.

In 2011, Dr. Phan was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research career. Dr. Phan’s research has been consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health, Veterans Affairs, and Department of Defense over the past 15 years. He has over 165 peer-reviewed publications, in journals such as Archives of General Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Journal of Neuroscience. Dr. Phan has served as editor and on editorial boards for several journals and peer reviewer on several NIH, DoD, and VA study sections. He has been a member of the Scientific Council of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and the Scientific Program Committee of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. He has been selected as a Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP).

Research Themes:

1) Functional Neuroanatomy of Emotion, Cognition, and Motivation

2) Functional Neuroanatomy Mood and Anxiety Disorders and Addiction

3) Brain Mechanisms and Predictors of Treatment Response in Mood and Anxiety Disorders